MPs call for Ofcom probe into BBC Shannon drama
MPs have called for Ofcom to investigate the BBC over its ‘voyeuristic’ drama about Shannon Matthews.
It came after it emerged the corporation did not talk to Shannon before turning her kidnap into TV entertainment.
Shannon, who went missing when she was nine, is now 18 and lives under a different name.
Meanwhile her mother Karen, who staged her kidnap to try to claim reward money, said the BBC1 drama, The Moorside, has left her fearing for her life, adding: ‘I cannot go out of the door. Why does it have to be dragged up again?’
The two-part programme follows the hunt for Shannon, who disappeared from the Moorside estate in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in 2008. After three weeks, police found her in the base of a divan bed in the home of Michael Donovan, the uncle of Matthews’ boyfriend.
Donovan and Matthews were jailed for eight years but served half. But while Matthews may not win much public sympathy, MPs are furious at the BBC’s failure to discuss the show with Shannon.
Labour MP Louise Haigh said it was ‘shocking’, adding: ‘It sounds like a clear breach of Ofcom guidance. In a case as high-profile and traumatic as this, it should have been handled with the utmost sensitivity.’
UKIP MP Douglas Carswell said: ‘Ofcom needs to took into it. The BBC is an unaccountable oligarchy funded like the medieval church by demanding a tithe payment. We need to bring it to account.’
The BBC also did not contact Shannon’s grandparents, but paid some non-family members for their help making the drama.
BBC rules state anyone making a drama of real-life events must not only notify those involved, but also try to secure their co-operation.
The BBC can ‘go against their wishes’, but is supposed to establish what those wishes are first.
The BBC notified Shannon, who was in the care of social services, about the drama ‘via the professionals responsible for her care’. But the executive producer admitted they didn’t invite her to contribute.
The BBC insists it did enough by notifying Shannon via a third party, adding: ‘The Moorside fully met the BBC’s criteria for going forward without securing co-operation of real people: the portrayal must be fair and accurate, based on a verifiable body of evidence, and in the public domain.’
‘An unaccountable oligarchy’